WELCOME TO JOBS DAY: POSITIVE SURPRISE? - All the data out Thursday suggests today might surprise to the upside, which would give President Obama a boost coming off his modestly received convention speech last night that included little in the way of new ideas or fresh policy proposals. ISM services and jobless claims both exceeded expectations and ADP private payrolls notched a huge beat at 201K. ... That would suggest around 190K this morning if you take out the recent 10K average loss in public sector jobs.

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That would be a good number and well above 125K expectations and last month's 163K. But only 200K or more and a drop in the 8.3% jobless rate would be enough to change the conversation in a positive way for the president. Below 100K, which seems nearly impossible, would undercut any convention bounce. A number in the middle will change pretty much nothing. But people will talk a lot about it anyway. Kind of like both conventions.

Biggest news going: markets popping to new four-year highs and ECB taking a fall euro zone collapse pretty much off the table. Both are bullish for Obama as is an electoral map that sets up pretty well for him and not so well for Mitt Romney. Obama still looks likely to score a narrow win unless he gets completely blown away by Romney money (possible) or suffers badly in the debates (very unlikely) or the economy takes a very bad turn (fairly unlikely).

MOODY'S ANALYTICSMark Zandi emails M.M.: “The economy feels like it is gaining some strength going into the election. Europe is more stable and worries about the fiscal cliff are likely on hold until after the election. Real GDP is tracking near 2.5% in the current quarter and this should be reflected in solid job gains of at least 150K per month for the next three months. This growth may even be enough to push unemployment down a notch or two by election day. ...

F ROM ZANDI's client bullet points: “I expect payroll employment to increase by 150,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 8.3%. Average hourly earnings will increase by 0.2% in the month and close to 2% over the past year. Underlying payroll job growth - abstracting from weather, seasonal adjustment and other temporary factors - is close to 150,000 jobs.

“This is the average monthly job gain over the past year. The economy needs to create 125,000 jobs per month to maintain a stable unemployment rate. The current pace of job growth is thus not fast enough to meaningfully reduce unemployment ... The 150,000 expected job gain will be one factor convincing the Federal Reserve to hold off on announcing another round of QE at its September meeting”

HPS STRAGEGIES TONY FRATTO in client note: “[T]he Obama campaign has been trying to rebrand President Obama’s first term as President Clinton’s third term, with a focus on the 4.5 million private sector jobs created since the jobs recovery began in 2010 ... [Voters] are grumpy because the current level of job growth is not making a dent in overall unemployment.

“With new entrants to the labor force, the current jobs recovery is like running on a treadmill, and to this point we haven’t been keeping up. Friday’s jobs report is unlikely to change Americans’ current assessment of the U.S. economy. The President needs a highly improbable 279,000 jobs per month for the unemployment rate to dip below the 8 percent level by Election Day” http://bit.ly/Oeiqdx

STRONGER PULSE - Reuters: “Companies added staff in August at the fastest clip in five months and a gauge of employment in the service sector also improved, upbeat signals for a struggling labor market. Another report on Thursday showed new claims for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level in a month. The data is the latest to hint the U.S. economy is gaining a bit of steam, and it raised chances the government's more comprehensive jobs report on Friday could be stronger than economists expect. ...

“The weak U.S. economy is center stage in the presidential election campaign. Housing and retail sales data also have suggested economic growth picked up early in the third quarter after clocking a 1.7 percent annual growth rate between April and June. However, business spending is weakening and inflation is slowing” http://reut.rs/OrhXR4

THE JOBS MEMO - Bloomberg's Hans “Jobs Day” Nichols got hands on old jobs day memos that president's get the night before: “Consider this first sentence from a short, sunny, memo, dated July 5, 1984. 'Tomorrow’s news about unemployment is spectacular: another 0.4 percent decline bringing the overall unemployment rate to 7.0 percent in June.'

While [current CEA Chair Alan] Krueger has been the bearer of mediocre economic news all summer, Feldstein was running out of superlatives to describe job growth. From April ('very good news') to May ('remarkably good') to June ('spectacular') the Feldstein memos provide an internal look at how Reagan’s senior advisers were viewing an economy on the march. And Feldstein’s glee at the improving data.” http://bit.ly/OdQjey

DEMS CROW OVER CONVENTION - From Democratic strategist/consultant Paul Equale’s email to M.M.: “The inside, bi-partisan buzz among long-time convention pros is how the Dems have become the party that knows how to stage these extravagant set pieces for maximum advantage, and the GOP has seemingly lost its golden touch. For many years Dems envied the permanent convention and messaging infrastructure maintained by the RNC and inspired by Michael Deaver's highly effective stage managing of the Reagan presidency.

“One outgrowth of the Michael Steele era is that the permanent RNC advantage has been eviscerated, and the Dems have learned a thing or two (or three, four or five) about using these quadrennial TV commercials to deliver a consistent message, inspire the base, and talk to America in a way that gives the national ticket some political wind under their wings for the fall. No matter who wins in November, count on the Repubs to spend some time on their convention 'after-action-report' to fix the obvious problems before 2016.”

MARKETS POP - AP/NYC: “The last time the stock market was this high, the Great Recession was just getting started and stocks were pointed toward a head-first descent. But on Thursday, the market moved swiftly in the other direction. The Standard & Poor's 500 index soared to its highest level since January 2008, and the Dow Jones industrial average hit its highest mark since December 2007. A concrete plan to support struggling countries in Europe provided the necessary jolt, and the gains were extraordinarily broad. European markets surged and U.S. Treasury bond prices dropped ...

“At a long-awaited meeting Thursday, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, unveiled a new program to buy government bonds from the region's struggling countries with the aim of lowering their borrowing costs. Draghi said the program will have no set limit on how much it can buy” http://lat.ms/NPnuFv

RALLY CONTINUES IN ASIA - Bloomberg: “Asian stocks rose ... after the European Central Bank announced an unlimited bond-buying program and China boosted stimulus measures ... The bond plan 'takes another European crisis episode off the table for at least the rest of this year,' said Andrew Pease, chief investment strategist at Russell Investment Group in Sydney, which manages about $150 billion. 'It does minimize the tail risk in Europe. There’s no doubt about it.'” http://bloom.bg/NX7k6U

PRIVATE EQUITY AT WORK - A Blackstone executive emails: “Let the record reflect that most of the private security here at the convention is provided by Allied Barton, a Blackstone portfolio company.”

PRIVATE EQUITY PART II: MARKELL EDITION - A different private equity source notes that Delaware Gov. Jack Markell hit Mitt Romney and his approach of “firing people” in his convention remarks But Markell has not always been so critical. Here is a YouTube video of Markell in which he thanks Blackstone at a ribbon cutting for a plant. Blackstone president Tony James is standing behind Markell in the clip.”

OBAMA LAST NIGHT: SETS SOME GOALS - As many in the party hoped for, President Obama laid out some specific goals for a second term though he offered nothing new in how we might achieve them. And a lot them seemed recycled from previous speeches and even the 2008 campaign. Obama promised to: create one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016; Cut net oil imports in half by 2020; Support 600,000 natural gas jobs by the end of the decade; Cut the growth of college tuition in half over the next 10 years; Recruit 100,000 math and science teachers over the next 10 years; Train two million workers for real jobs at community college; Invest in the economy with the money we’re no longer spending on war; Reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade”

KEY SECTION: RECOVERY IS NOT EASY - From the prepared text: “I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one. And by the way - those of us who carry on his party’s legacy should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington.”

TWEET REPORT - Per Team Twitter: The peak of President's speech was 52,757 TPM. This came at the conclusion.

Additional President Obama TPMs

10:59PM - 43,646 TPM - I'm no longer just the candidate, I'm the President

10:51PM - 39,002 TPM - I will never turn medicare into a voucher

10:54PM - 37,694TPM - Don't think government is the source of all our problems

RARELY MENTIONED: Obamacare. Stimulus.

BOTTOM LINE - M.M. Dem Convention speaker ranking by impact 1.) Bill Clinton, by a country mile. Even though he could have cut 20 minutes, the former president laid out the case for Obama's record and approach in a much more compelling way than the president himself. Clinton is simply without equal in talking policy in a politically effective way. Even Paul Ryan is nowhere close. 2.) Michelle Obama. She flayed the Romney story without ever mentioning his name. 3.) Everyone else.

RNC VS DNC - No doubt the Dem convention was better produced with more delegate energy. But that edge probably won't make any difference at all in the outcome of the race.

GOP REACT - RNC Chair Reince Priebus: “Tonight's speech from the president had the trademark soaring rhetoric but was devoid of any sense of responsibility for the disappointments of the last four years. The speech was one last plea to a country ready to move on. ... But with no new ideas, he failed to convince voters the next four years won't just look like the last four”

IT BEGINS: NEW ROMNEY AD BARRAGE - Romney campaign, infused with post-convention, launches 15 new ads in 8 states today. The 8 states offer a pretty good map of the remaining battlegrounds: Colo., Fla., Iowa, Nev., N.H., N.C., Ohio and Va.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING - M.M. is wheels up for NYC at 10:00 am but don't worry we will be writing about the jobs number while on board. So email your react!

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DRIVING THE DAY - Jobs number hits at 8:30 a.m. as much of the national media will be pulling up stakes from Charlotte. Consensus is for 125K and no change to the 8.3% jobless rate. ... President Obama will react in New Hampshire around 12:20 p.m. EDT with VP Biden before moving on to Iowa ... Mitt Romney will be traveling when the number comes out but will have an opportunity to address it at a 12:00 pm CDT rally in Orange City, Iowa and in Nashua, NH at 7:10 pm

THIS WEEKEND - Obama kicks off two-day Florida bus tour on Saturday with events near St. Petersburg and Kissimmee ... VP Biden splits off to Ohio ... Romney is in Virginia on Saturday and appears on Meet the Press on Sunday (taped from New Hampshire)

NEXT WEEK - Obama is in Nevada and Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday ... Bill Clinton will campaign for Obama in Florida and Ohio

TOP STORY: ECB GOES BIG - WSJ's Brian Blackstone and Charles Forelle on pg. A1: “The [ECB], acknowledging that Europe's debt crisis has reached a critical stage, said it was prepared to use its most powerful tool—its printing press—to save the euro. Markets on both sides of the Atlantic rallied Thursday after the ECB approved a plan paving the way for the bank to make unlimited purchases in struggling euro members' bond markets. ... 'We want this to be perceived as a fully effective backstop' that removes extreme risks for the bloc, ECB President Mario Draghi told reporters after the ECB's monthly meeting, at which it also left its main policy rate unchanged at 0.75%, a record low. 'The euro is irreversible.'

“Global stock and debt markets responded ebulliently to the plan, which would let the ECB conduct secondary-market purchases of bonds that are issued by troubled euro-zone governments and have maturities of one to three years. As a condition, the ECB would require the governments to sign on to a euro-zone program of budgetary discipline. Spain and Italy, the continent's two most closely watched economies, saw their borrowing costs effectively fall, and their major stock indexes rise more than 4% each.” http://on.wsj.com/Nffrjw

BOOST FOR OBAMA - FT's Robin Harding: “Obama’s chances of re-election as US president rose on Thursday and the words that did it were not his but Mario Draghi’s. Long before Mr Obama stood up to accept the Democratic nomination ... the head of the European Central Bank had sketched out a new plan to buy the bonds of troubled eurozone countries. That will not move the polls; it will not move a single vote.

“But Mr Draghi has lowered the gravest of risks to Mr Obama: a pre-election meltdown in the eurozone that would have blown up banks, pulverised Wall Street, and routed a fragile US economy back into recession. If that happened, it would not be Mr Obama’s fault, but he would get the blame. Just as the failure of Lehman Brothers doomed his rival John McCain in 2008, a eurozone implosion would create economic odds too great for Mr Obama to surmount” http://on.ft.com/ToHr6X

TRANSITIONS: JPMORGAN EDITION - Per JPM memo: “We are pleased to announce that Craig Delany has been named Chief Investment Officer of JPMorgan Chase, reporting to Matt [Zames]. As part of this broad role, Craig will manage the firm's Mortgage Servicing Rights. He will remain on the firm’s Executive Committee and the Mortgage Banking Executive Committee. For the past 18 months, Craig has worked in Mortgage Banking, most recently as Chief Operating Officer. He has been one of the key architects in the turnaround of that business to profitability and excellent customer service

FORTUNE COVER: IS IT STILL OK TO BE RICH? - From cover piece by Nina Easton: "Most of the 1.4 million taxpayers who make up the top 1% gained their wealth through their own efforts rather than by inheritance. This group consists of a large number of doctors, lawyers, engineers, and small-time entrepreneurs, many of whom are working hard to create jobs. To vilify them is the wrong debate. ... It is true that today's wealthy are richer than in the past and their share of the nation's income has grown.

“In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 1% club earned about one-tenth of the nation's income. By 2007 it was 23.5%, the second highest in history after 1929. Cost of admission to the 1% club varies from year to year, but when measured by annual income it typically ranges between $300,000 and $400,000. Net-worth estimates are less reliable and therefore seldom used, but by one calculation, a household needs $8.4 million to qualify. About half the 1% qualify in both categories." Cover image: http://bit.ly/Uw89bO

ERRATA - Yesterday we said respondents to the CNNMoney online survey were mostly saying they are NOT better off. The opposite is true. http://cnnmon.ie/Ut7BDy

COMING NEXT WEEK: FRANCHISE EVENT - International Franchise Association is holding a presser on Monday AM at a local DC franchise (Bojangles’) where they’ll release their newest Franchise Business Outlook as well as “highlight the fact that franchises are real job creators (both franchisors and franchisees) whose growth is being stifled by uncertainty a la fiscal cliff.”

AMAZON LAUNCHES NEW TABLETS - NYT's Nick Bilton: “Amazon announced a barrage of new tablets and e-readers on Thursday that makes its challenge to Apple’s iPad a little more serious.

Amazon announced updates to its line of Kindle e-readers, including the Kindle Fire HD, a tablet computer that comes in two sizes, one that is nearly as large as the iPad and that undercuts its price by $200. The company also announced the Kindle Paperwhite, a new version of the black-and-white Kindle that is thinner and turns pages 15 percent quicker than its predecessor ...

“The company now has seven models ranging from a basic $70 black-and-white-screen e-reader to a $600 color tablet. (It also still sells an aging model with a keyboard.) ... The Kindle Fire HD challenges the iPad on several fronts. The larger version of the device has an 8.9-inch display, compared with the iPad’s 9.7 inches ... The larger version of the Kindle Fire HD costs $300; the baseline iPad costs $500. (Apple sells an older model for $400.) http://nyti.ms/RgfpK4

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Authors:

About The Author

Ben White is POLITICO Pro's chief economic correspondent and author of the “Morning Money” column covering the nexus of finance and public policy.

Prior to joining POLITICO in the fall of 2009, Mr. White served as a Wall Street reporter for the New York Times, where he shared a Society of Business Editors and Writers award for breaking news coverage of the financial crisis.

From 2005 to 2007, White was Wall Street correspondent and U.S. Banking Editor at the Financial Times.

White worked at the Washington Post for nine years before joining the FT. He served as national political researcher and research assistant to columnist David S. Broder and later as Wall Street correspondent.

White, a 1994 graduate of Kenyon College, has two sons and lives in New York City.